Certificate in Entrepreneurship

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Required Coursework

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GOAL: Provide entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to graduate students.
Especially relevant for students
who hope to work with or become entrepreneurs at graduation or in the
future or participate in policies of entrepreneurship.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE: Graduate students from any school on campus.

OVERVIEW: This certificate program offers a suite of
courses that span business entrepreneurship courses and the
curricula of several colleges and schools at UW-Madison. This
certificate program emphasizes skills in entrepreneurship along with the
ability to analyze the role of entrepreneurship in society.
Entrepreneurship in this context refers to the process of imagining
opportunities and taking action to create value through new ventures, a crucial life
skill.

Further, new firm creation can be a critical factor in global
economic growth, and entrepreneurial capabilities can be crucial in
bringing new technologies and services to society.

Many capabilities underlie the ability to foster and lead new
ventures, including knowledge of organizational forms, financial
evaluation, legal and structural options for creating organizations,
market and need evaluation, the ability to work with founding teams and
strategies for organizational growth.

A student who has completed this certificate
will have good foundational skills in recognizing promising
opportunities and building a new organization or venture to create
value.

FAQs

You must take foundational courses in the Wisconsin School of Business. You may then complement that work with additional courses from the lists shown for each certificate.

For example, the Graduate Certificate in Strategic Innovation requires students to take MHR 715 (Strategic Management in the Life and Engineering Sciences) and at least one course from a set of advanced Wisconsin School of Business courses. The four-course certificate program may be completed with two other courses from the Wisconsin School of Business or elsewhere on campus from the selected list on course requirements.

In addition, you will be expected to participate in opportunities to apply the knowledge, such as the Schoof’s competition, the G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition, or other projects.

As one example, a law student who wants to work with small business or start-up clients might take these courses: MHR 722-Entrepreneural Management, Fin 757-Entrepreneurial Finance, LAW 854-Clinical: Law and Entrepreneurship, and LAW 953: Law and Entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship

Focus on graduate student who will start a new venture, will work for a new venture in the near future, or wants to gain long-term entrepreneurship knowledge.

Students gain basic knowledge about designing, planning, and funding new ventures; assembling a founding team; completing legal forms for new ventures; determining the growth of young ventures; assessing intellectual property issues for start-ups; and understanding market assessment and development.

Good fit for student with strong interest in new-venture formation who wants to become effective in understanding entrepreneurial processes, the related skills, and the role of entrepreneurship in society.

Strategic Innovation

Focus on graduate student who will work on innovative projects in existing organizations.

Students gain knowledge about imagining and researching markets, managing new product development process in an existing organization, research and development, organizational creativity, business model innovation, intellectual property, and society-level innovation systems.

Good fit for graduate student with deep expertise—in science/technology or the arts, for example—who want to innovate in existing organizations.

Both

BOTH certificates emphasize the business context, and BOTH can be used to probe sustainability and social-mission goals.

Yes, but a student may not use the same advanced Wisconsin School of Business course to acquire two certificates (i.e., MHR 715 - Strategic Management of Innovation, MHR 722 - Entrepreneurial Management, and MHR741 - Technology Entrepreneurship cannot be counted for more than one certificate).

The required foundation course, advanced entrepreneurship coursework, and electives from across the campus as shown will tally a minimum of 12 credits. A slate of coursework options available for fulfilling the certificate program is shown in the accompanying table. Students are strongly encouraged to participate in related non-credit entrepreneurship immersion experiences via competitions and student organizations.

The foundation course has no prerequisites and is open to all graduate students on campus. A total of 12 credits is required. Students will: 1) take one required foundation course (MHR 722 - Entrepreneurial Management); 2) choose at least three additional credits from a list of Wisconsin School of Business advanced entrepreneurship coursework; and 3) select up to six credits of additional courses from other elective coursework or advanced entrepreneurship coursework.

Required Foundation Coursework (3 credits)

MHR 722 - Entrepreneurial Management (Fall/Spring)

Wisconsin School of Business - Advanced ESHIP (choose at least 3 credits from list)

* A student may not use the same advanced Wisconsin School of Business course to acquire two certificates (i.e. MHR 715 - Strategic Management of Innovation, MHR 722 - Entrepreneurial Management, and MHR741 - Technology Entrepreneurship cannot be counted for more than one certificate).

The Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship does not prescribe any
formal tracks or concentrations. We encourage students to assemble a
meaningful portfolio of courses given their own specific background and
goals. Sample
bundles follow: